Many modern video and still cameras have built in electronic or optical stabilizers. These stabilizers are helpful when the camera is held relatively still, to capture, for example, a distant landscape. However, when camera movement is made that exceeds the ability of the built in stabilizer to correct, the result is a jumping effect as the stabilizer attempts to reestablish a reference. This problem is seen often when shooting from platforms which may be moving and changing direction and orientation rapidly and/or unpredictably.
The desire to capture good quality photographic images from a flying platform has been around since the flights of early hot air balloons. However a challenge has been the instability of moving and vibrating aerial platforms including helicopters and fixed wing aircraft. While very high quality images can be captured using expensive camera mounting devices, such devices are commonly attached to the exterior of an airplane or helicopter or require significant structural alterations to accommodate location of a camera inside the flying machine. There remains a need for an easily installed device for mounting a camera inside a helicopter without altering any structural components of the helicopter. Such a device can be transported to remote locations where a helicopter is located, installed inside the helicopter, used to capture images and afterwards be removed from the helicopter and transported to another location. The helicopter remains in its original condition. This allows an entity that wishes to capture images from a helicopter on a one time or sporadic basis to do so in an affordable manner without regulatory interference. Such a device is provided by the invention disclosed herein.